


Birthday Cake

by amtrak12



Series: Operation More Toltzmann [6]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, it's just... pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 01:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7915417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amtrak12/pseuds/amtrak12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patty's birthday is coming up, and Holtzmann decides to bake her a cake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Birthday Cake

**Author's Note:**

> This is for an anonymous prompt left to me on Tumblr that requested "Holtzmann attempts to make Patty a birthday cake". It unfortunately took me forever to write this because I am slow af when it comes to filling other people's prompts :S But I finally got it done!
> 
> Dear anon - I hope you like it!

Holtzmann checked the instructions on the box again. The lighting in the kitchen area was dim given the late hour, but a nightlight meant to guide people to the sink helped her read. For 7 in x 11 in pan, bake for 12-15 minutes until a toothpick comes out dry. Holtz lit up her watch display to check the time. It had been nine minutes since she put the cake in.

She sighed. Baking cakes was hard. Correction: waiting on a cake to bake was hard. The stirring had been easy and pleasantly fun. Holtzmann had even managed not to spill anything. It helped that she had been pouring directly from a box to a bowl. There hadn't been multiple bags of flour and sugar that she'd had to juggle.

There really should have been, though. Baking a cake using a box of mix seemed like cheating, and if this was any other cake, Holtzmann would have done all the ingredient picking and mixing and stirring on her own terms, experimenting with different combinations until she found something interesting. But interesting didn't always mean delicious or to everyone's tastes, and this was meant to be Patty's birthday cake. It had to be magnificent, it had to be magnanimous, it had to be perfect.... Though, truthfully, Holtz would settle for edible.

And quicker. Wowzer, nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds since she put in the cake. This was ridiculous. Maybe she should have used a blowtorch.

(Would it take less time to bake a cake a few inches at a time with a blowtorch versus all at once in the oven? Would that ruin the texture of the cake or would it still taste good? Hmm, experiment for next time.)

At ten minutes, Holtzmann checked the cake and deemed it Not Done Yet. She checked it again at twelve minutes with the same results. Finally, at fourteen minutes, she deemed it Good Enough and pulled it out of the oven.

"Oww! eeee -- shit!" The cake pan clattered to the stove, and Holtzmann shook out her hands. Oh, that hurt. That hurt a lot: too hot, way too hot. She had kind of forgotten that oven mitts were a thing and that the fingerless mitts she was still wearing did not count.

Holtzmann grimaced and stuck her fingers in her mouth. Nope, that made it worse. Ouch. At least the cake was okay. It hadn't fallen out of the pan or tipped over when she'd dropped it on top of the stove.

She closed the oven door and turned the appliance off just as the kitchen light flipped on.

"Holtzy?" came a tired voice from behind her. "What are you doing banging around at two-thirty in the morning?"

Holtzmann spun around wearing her best grin. "Is it only two-thirty? I thought it was four."

Patty rubbed at her eyes. "Only you would think two-thirty in the morning warranted an only. Even Abby and Erin know this is late." She stopped and sniffed curiously at the air. Holtzmann tried to subtly drift to the side to block her view of the stove top.

"Are you baking a cake?"

Damn, busted. Holtz had really hoped she wouldn't notice the cake.

"Is there a cake?" She half-turns back to the stove to look at the pan still cooling. "Well, what do you know, the cake isn't a lie after all."

"What?" Patty walked over to stand next to her. Holtzmann felt her whole body tense in that exciting top of the roller coaster drop or first test run of a new invention kind of way. She stared up at Patty as Patty blinked sleepily at the cake pan and spoke again. "How can a cake be lying?"

"Portal," Holtzmann explained. "Gladys. 'The cake is a lie'." (Patty didn't nod her head like she normally did during an explanation, so Holtzmann rambled on.) "It's a video game. From grad school. I played it for a weekend and then tried to build a working portal gun which set my wall on fire, and I had to find a new apartment." (Patty still hadn't nodded.) "It was fun."

Was Patty tired? Was she sick? It was three days before her birthday, Patty couldn't be sick now. That was against the known laws of the universe and completely unfair.

"The cake is a lie," Holtzmann repeated quietly.

Patty finally made a movement, but it was to rub at her eye again. "Alright, in the morning, you're explaining what a portal gun is. If it's anything like Rowan's portal, I don't want any part of it."

Holtzmann lit up in a grin at the invite to continue (and at the possible invite to try building a portal gun again -- that was a good idea; being able to jump from room to room instantly during busts was only fair given they were chasing ghosts who could walk through walls). She opened her mouth to explain further about how portal guns worked, but Patty beat her to the punch.

"But why are you baking a cake in the middle of the night?"

Holtzmann closed her mouth and looked at the cake again. "I needed it to be in the middle of the night so it was a surprise."

Patty picked up the cake mix box and read the front. "German chocolate cake."

It suddenly struck Holtzmann that she had no idea if that was a suitable flavor for Patty's birthday cake. It had seemed suitable at the time because chocolate was delicious and who didn't like chocolate? But what if Patty didn't like chocolate? Shit shit shit.

"Is that okay?" Holtzmann asked. "Do you eat German chocolate cake?"

"Yeah, I eat any kind of chocolate cake," Patty said. (Phew.) "I'm not sure the coconut's always necessary that they put in the icing bu--"

Holtzmann interrupted by reaching past her to pluck the icing container off the counter. She held it up proudly so Patty could see it said 'Funfetti' on the side instead of German Chocolate.

"Coconut's for the birds," she said. Then, added, "But only if it's fresh. Desiccated coconut could kill them." Or was that coconut milk? Holtzmann couldn't remember for sure from when she was a kid and trying to figure out why coconut was a food that even existed and what creatures would eat such a weirdly textured monstrosity.

Patty hadn't responded to the Funfetti icing yet, so Holtzmann continued. "We can leave the sprinkles on the side, too, if you want. Sometimes their crunch is weird, and people don't like that." Holtzmann enjoyed the crunch of sprinkles, but she did not enjoy the chewiness of coconut, so maybe Patty was someone who didn't enjoy crunching sprinkles.

Patty was smiling now, and Holtzmann wasn't sure what that meant for the sprinkles.

"Hold on, are you out here making me a birthday cake?"

"Yeah." Holtzmann smiled back. "Happy birthday."

Patty shook her head, still grinning. "It's not for three days, though."

"I know." Holtzmann threw her hands up in the air. "Surprise."

Patty laughed and pulled her into a hug. "Thank you, baby! I can't believe you did that for me."

Holtzmann took a deep breath in and brought her hands down to hug back. To hug Patty back. Patty was hugging her. She was getting a hug from Patty.

And Patty gave the best hugs. It was officially decided. Holtzmann would be fine if Patty decided to give her a hug everyday for the rest of forever. Or twice a day. ... Maybe three times.

Patty pulled back. "So we staying up now to snatch some cake before the other two wake up, right?"

Holtzmann grinned. "I got the knife."

"A normal knife, though, Holtzy. Like a butter knife. No, not... no.... Yeah, okay that one works."

Holtzmann swung the knife triumphantly and broke into the icing container.

The icing job was as messy as the mixing job hadn't been.

But the cake tasted delicious.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to find me on Tumblr @ amtrak12 (and yes you can leave me prompts if you'd like, though again, I am very, very slow at filling them. my bad.)


End file.
